NBE Finances SMEs With EGP 890 Mln In Q1

The National Bank of Egypt (NBE) offered finances worth EGP 890 million for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Q1 of FY 2012/2013.

These loans went to 3,000 new customers, said Soha Soliman, head of SME finance department at NBE. The bank targets to increase the value of SME finance portfolio to reach EGP 4 billion by the end of FY 2012/2013. The media campaign recently launched by the bank highly contributed to increasing the requests for the loans, she noted.

In addition, NBE is in talks with a number of international institutions such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and German Development Bank (KfW Entwicklungsbank) to receive the finance needed for SMEs.

NBE’s portfolio of SME finance rose to EGP 8.6 billion at the end of June 2012 after providing about 8,700 SMEs with EGP 3.2 billion in FY 2011/2012. The total number of the bank’s SME customers reached 33,000.